


On the Subject of Irrational Numbers

by DarkWolfMoon



Category: Forever (TV), Person of Interest (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-01 22:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5222741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWolfMoon/pseuds/DarkWolfMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*SPOILERS FOR PERSON OF INTEREST SEASON 4* Shortly after Team Machine loses Shaw, they receive what appears to be a regular number. Dr. Henry Morgan appears to be fairly normal, if a little old fashioned. As dangerous coincidences start cropping up, it is clear that the Machine has something bigger in the works for the whole team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anomalies

The first time it happened on a subway car.

The Machine was watching—inaccurate, the Machine records, the Machine extrapolates. She takes the data from billions of eyes and creates a list of threats to human life. Definition of verb “to watch”: to observe attentively, perhaps over an extended period of time. Previous statement was correct: the Machine was watching.

And the anomaly first appeared on a subway car that crashed. Before the cameras cut out, there were sixteen people in the first subway car including the driver. But the cameras on the platform revealed that only fifteen bodies were recovered. Scanning her data banks, the Machine discovered the sixteenth body surfaced in the river moments after the crash, very much alive.

Anomalous entity identified: Dr. Henry Morgan, Chief Medical Examiner, New York City. Status: Observation.

 

Anomaly Log, entry #2.

Lower East Side, late evening.

There were no cameras in the shop known as Abe’s Antiques, not in the area that the anomaly entered before he appeared again in the East River.

Noting the repeated state of undress, the Machine accessed his police file, cross-referencing counts of public indecency with accident reports throughout the city.

She filed the correlation under "Continue Observation".

 

Anomaly Log, entry #3.

Grand Central Station, a period of time that people refer to as "rush hour".

The Machine had plenty of eyes at the station, inside and out. She saw the confrontation on the roof and the resulting fall. The anomaly had been shot, and had then landed on a vehicle in front of the station. Training the cameras on the scene, she recorded the precise moment that the deceased body of the anomaly disappeared.

Another portion of her senses drew her attention again to the East River, where the anomaly was swimming to shore.

Status Updated: Potential Asset. Continue observation pending Admin notification.

 

Henry could not shake the feeling that he was being watched. He thought it might have been Adam. But he was safely tucked away in the hospital, paralyzed and unable to speak, and still the feeling perpetuated.

He doubted that it was Jo, especially now that she knew. He remembered her reaction when he had finished relating his very long and complicated story.

_"As crazing as all that sounds, it actually explains a few things. So the reason you were so upset about Abigail..."_

_"Yes. She was my wife, and I loved her dearly." Henry sighed. "Abraham was the one who got me through her disappearance and forced me to move on."_

_"And Abe is your son." Jo ran her fingers through her hair. "I'm going to need a little time and a lot of alcohol to wrap my head around this, but I think I understand most of it."_

Henry was still surprised that she had believed him. Nora hadn't, and had him sent to Bedlam when he tried to prove it. Abigail--and that twinge of sadness and regret that always came with her memory stung him once more--she had seen the effects of his curse first before he could explain it.

But Jo, she trusted him without asking for proof. As she said, it did explain a few things, but explanation and proof are two very distant things. To believe him as she did...it was a kind of blind faith that he had encountered only once in his two and a half centuries of living.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him—and quite closely. The only ones he knew of that could get that close to him were Abe and Jo. Henry suddenly felt the need to visit the hospital and ensure that Adam was still there.

He took his copy of _Paradise Lost_ , the epic in which the Devil could be a hero and where God was an insurmountable obstacle. The older immortal probably loved it.

 

Her attention could never be diverted. She could be focused, but her eyes were watching. The Machine was always watching.

But she had lost one of them—one of the assets—the woman called Shaw. The Analog Interface had protested. She and the main asset had gone in search of Shaw. But not even the Machine, with all her eyes and all her resources, not even she could find Shaw. Neither she, nor the assets and the Admin, could fight Samaritan on his own ground.

Asset #1, John Reece, was shutting out the detective—Lionel Fusco, Asset #3—because of the loss of Asset #2 Sameen Shaw. Every short conversation with Analog Interface Root devolved into a negotiation for clues to Asset #2’s whereabouts. But she didn’t have them. She couldn’t get them and send the team without losing the Admin, which to her circuits was tantamount to catastrophic failure.

Asset Update Available: Henry Morgan, PhD. Medical Examiner, New York City Morgue. Anomalous Characteristic: Ability to survive fatal events, 100% recorded, 99.9999999% probability of continued phenomena.

Origin of Anomaly: Unknown.

Threat to Potential Asset: Adam, Real Name Unknown, Similar Anomaly, Potential Threat to Admin. Current Status: Temporary Neutralization through Paralysis, hospitalized.

Usefulness of Anomaly: Incalculable. Anomaly cannot be killed.

Precautions taken to protect Potential Asset #4: Records Falsified, Active Shielding of Records and Relocation to East River following Subject Death.

If only it were possible to make Admin like the Anomaly—to make the Assets like the Anomaly. Perhaps Admin could figure it out…

Admin was Creator. Father.

And Father could do almost anything.

Notifying Admin: New Number-->Dr. Henry Morgan.


	2. Back to Basics

“We have a new number, Mr. Reece.” Harold Finch announced as the ex-CIA operative entered the subway car that held his work station.

John glanced at the photograph that appeared on one of the screens. “Is it a lead on Shaw?”

“It doesn’t appear to be. Unless the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City has decided to join Decima.” Harold started pulling up the man’s records. “A possibility, but a very slim one. They are far too cavalier about their murders to employ the medical examiner to cover them up. And I doubt that citizens of the United Kingdom meet up to have tea with their fellow countrymen. As of yet, I can see no connection to Greer or to any of Decima’s known operatives.”

“I could see you finding a way to join that tea party.”

“Yes, well, perhaps if our lives weren’t constantly threatened by Mr. Greer,” Finch retorted with his own dry wit, “he and I could find some time for a cup of tea and a pleasant conversation.”

"So, chief medical examiner?"

"His name is Henry Morgan, but there's not much more I can tell you about him. His electronic footprint is practically nonexistent. I can tell you that it was recently altered by a very good hacker. And before you ask, it's too rough to have been Samaritan."

"So what's he hiding?" John murmured, leaning in closer to see the picture of the man.

"I'm afraid that's a question you'll have to answer." Finch smiled slightly, "I believe Detective Fusco will be thrilled with your newfound zeal for your job."

“Oh.” John had been avoiding dragging Fusco into anything because he of all of them had the most to lose.  And not only that, he would be forced to attend more of the job that had been assigned to him for cover.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the job. Maybe it was the fact that it went against the purpose Finch had given him when they met four years ago. Working Homicide was like visiting a display of his biggest failures. Every dead body in the streets was someone he had failed to save. It was reliving that crushing moment when he had been told that Jessica died.

Finch’s voice snapped John back out of his thoughts. “I’m going to look more into the alterations that were made to his record. I had you and the detective assigned to a new case with Dr. Morgan as your ME. You will need to leave soon in order to meet Detective Fusco before you get the case file.” Harold was pulling up several of Henry’s recent cases on the screen, setting one aside that seemed concerned with a hacker group with an MO similar to Vigilance. “I’ll keep you updated on my progress.”

With something between a grimace and a smirk, John turned away. “I guess I’ll see you after I get off work.”

 

Detective Lionel Fusco seemed genuinely surprised when John showed up and accepted the casefile from the lieutenant, after refilling the reformed cop’s coffee cup. He made a mental note to do this more often, if only to mess with Fusco’s head.

“Is IA busting your ass again?” Fusco asked once they were in the car. “Because I can’t think of another reason that you would show up on time to work and actually go with me to the crime scene. The last time you were this diligent, the lieutenant was after you for your low closure rate.” He snorted. “If it’s going to be like that day, does that mean we going to be busting people across the city? I could use four fewer cases.”

“Lionel, if Internal Affairs was after my badge, you would be one of the first to know.”

“Dammit. This means you aren’t closing four cases in one day again, are you?”

“No.” Reese was content to leave it there, but the true reason for his uncharacteristic diligence prodded him. “What do you know about Dr. Henry Morgan?”

“The ME? That’s why you’re actually doing your job? Fantastic.” Fusco’s speech devolved into unintelligible muttering. “…can’t help your own partner…gotta save the whole damn world before you can think about your actual job. And who gets stuck with Wonderboy? Me, that’s who.”

 The scene was cordoned off when they arrived and John recognized the medical examiner from the pictures of him that he had seen on Finch’s computer screen. He was stooped over the body taking in some of the smaller detail, but he looked up as they approached.

“Ah, Detective Fusco. Good to see you again.” John had known ahead of time that Dr. Morgan would have an accent, but there was something behind it. He sounded kind of like Finch. The man was polite, as a matter of personal preference rather than professional courtesy. Like Finch, Dr. Morgan’s words were simple, precise, and to the point. “I don’t believe I’ve met your partner.”

John took that as an opening to introduce himself. “John Riley. I was transferred recently.”

“And he’s got a bunch of CIs from working undercover with Narcotics, so he normally works the living side of the investigation.”

Outwardly, John remained calm and unmoved, but he was slightly surprised and impressed that Fusco was lying through his teeth about John’s usual activities. Although, given the detective’s involvement in some of John’s extra-vocational activities, revealing anything about John would immediately implicate him as well.

“We all start to branch out a bit after a while. I’ve been getting more involved in the living side of the investigation lately.” The ME took his glove off and held out his hand for John to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Detective Riley.”

“Nice to meet you too, Dr. Morgan. What have we got?” John shifted attention to the woman on the ground so he could force pair Henry’s phone. Except he wasn’t registering a phone other than Fusco’s within the radius.

“She was poisoned with cyanide.”

“How can you possibly know that without the lab results?” Fusco asked.

“The color.” Both Lionel and Dr. Morgan turned to look at John as he spoke.

“I take it that you have seen a cyanide death before,” Dr. Morgan asked.

John shifted, uncomfortable under the sudden attention he was getting. When he had joined the CIA, cyanide pills were standard issue for spies if they ever got caught. They were shown the effect of cyanide on the body, explained in detail what was happening in the body and how to counteract it if they ever ingested their pills in error. But the memory of bright pink bodies stained his mind with the kind of indelible ink that only the brain can have. “One or two.”

Fusco was still staring at him as the ME turned back to the body. Locking eyes with the detective, John shrugged slightly. The less Fusco knew about that time of his life the better, no matter how many things it would explain.

“Is there any way I can get in contact with you if I have questions about the case?”

Dr. Morgan glanced over his shoulder. “I can give you my office number.”

“What if you’re out on another case?” John pressed. “Can I get your cellphone number?”

“Oh. I don’t have a cellphone. I don’t believe in them.”

John held his phone. “But they do exist. See?”

“That’s not what I meant, and I’m sure you know that.” Dr. Morgan stood up again and stepped back so the woman’s body could be loaded onto a gurney and taken to the morgue. “You are welcome to come with me to the morgue if you have any questions.”

 

John spent the rest of the day at the morgue, increasingly more interested in the murder case, though he was loathe to admit it while he was supposed to be monitoring Dr. Morgan. He hadn’t spent much time on this side of investigation at all, despite Lionel’s complaints about how John would have been perfect for chopping up bodies considering the normal damage he did to the human body. And perhaps getting involved with the gore side of things would turn Fusco off even faster.

He was really just hovering when the female detective came in.

“Hey, Lucas. Is Henry back yet?”

The gangly lab tech looked up from the project he was working on. “Yeah, he’s in his office.”

“Good.” She seemed to see John for the first time as he stood over the body of his victim. “Who are you? Have we met before?”

“I’m John Riley, a detective from the 12th.” He took off the gloves he had been required to put on and held out his hand in greeting. “And no, I don’t believe we have met.”

“Oh. Well, I’m Detective Jo Martinez. Henry’s typically my medical examiner.” She wasn’t saying it in a possessive way, but it sounded more cautious than he thought she needed to be. “Wait, Riley? Aren’t you that detective that closed several cases in a day?”

“And I’m just here to work another one.”

“The pink dead girl?”

“Ah, Detective Martinez. Good afternoon.” Henry glided over to the examination table and started poking around in the victim’s body again. “Oh, Lucas, I have the final write-up for Mr. Bradley’s case on my desk. If you get a moment, could you take it to the mail center so it can get back to the detectives who need it?”

“Sure thing, Doc. I was due for my break anyway.” The assistant washed his hands and went to get the file.

“Hanson wanted me to ask if we’re still on for tonight. Since you weren’t around all day, he thought maybe you had gotten too busy to go to the bar with our group.”

 _Interesting,_ John thought as he paired Detective Martinez’s phone. _At least I can get something close to him tonight. Then I can do the rest of this the way I used to before I met Finch._

 

The rest of the evening had been fairly uneventful for their new number, John had found. As gathered from Detective Martinez, he went to a bar with a few of his coworkers, including the detective and her partner Mike Hanson. Hanson's wife was apparently also there, and received many congratulations for the expectancy of her third child. Meanwhile, John had gotten back into the morgue to bug Dr. Morgan's office.

Then he started flipping through the case file again. Something about it was bothering him, but he wasn't exactly sure what it was. Dr. Morgan's notes were very neat and accompanied many of the pictures.

There were scratches on the woman's throat, skin and bits of blood under her nails, both of which bore up the ME's supposition that she had died due to a lungful of hydrogen cyanide. And they had a name for her now: Christine Harmon. She had worked at a program development company that helped create and streamline apps. Maybe he could get Finch to look into her...

Taking stock of his handiwork and making a mental note to bug the good medical examiner's place of residence next time it was empty. He'd like to know why the doctor lived above an antique shop though.

 

“So,” Finch asked when Reese returned to the subway tunnel later in the evening. “How did you enjoy actually doing your cover job?”

John rolled his eyes expressively at his true employer. “I still hate paperwork.”

“And the good doctor Morgan?”

The ex-CIA agent ran his fingers though his salt and pepper hair. “I honestly hope that he isn’t the perpetrator. I like him. But he doesn’t believe in cellphones, which makes the job a little more difficult. What did you find out about him?”

“Well,” Finch began pulled up a few records. “There are a lot of inconsistencies—so much that I am beginning to wonder what, if any of this, is actually true.”

“So it’s not Witness Protection?”

“Hardly. The additions were made to his public files after a case with a group of hackers. He saved one of them and she fleshed out his file in return. It’s actually some very good work.”

“So we still don’t know exactly who he is or where he comes from? Maybe we’ll learn a bit more from the bugs I planted.”

Finch leaned back to look at John. “Perhaps. At least we don’t have to deal with Decima at the moment. A normal number at this point could help us regain our footing without Shaw.”

John’s jaw tightened. If Greer ever got within shooting distance, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stop himself from firing on him, even if it killed his cover identity.

For the first time in a long time, John wasn’t sure he wanted to stop himself from killing him.


	3. A Million Eyes and Two Different Ears

Henry still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. If anything, it had only gotten worse the day before when Detective Riley had spent the entire day hovering. He couldn’t blame the man, especially since he had apparently not had much to do with the forensic side of investigation.

 _But he never asked any questions_ , a small part of Henry’s brain was warning him. It was the same part that told him to run when someone found out about his secret. _He just watched all day._

The case that Detective Riley was working was strange as well. The woman had asphyxiated because she had somehow inhaled hydrogen cyanide. But it wasn’t the kind of substance that someone like Ms. Harmon would come across in her daily life.

It was clearly murder, but the motive was less obvious. Just from what he could gather from her body, she was not a person to hold grudges or to let something she had done go un-apologized. Her worst crime was probably an overdue library book or a stealing candy from someone’s hidden stash. Nothing that would induce someone to murder her in such a violent and personal way.

“She must have found out about something,” Henry realized as he reviewed the notes for Detective Riley. “Something big. She would have reported it without really understanding what it was.”

Henry’s office phone rang and he picked up the receiver. “Dr. Morgan here.”

The dissonant warble of a voice changer hummed in his ear. “Drop the Harmon case.”

Before the person on the other end of the line said anything else, the line disconnected, leaving Henry slightly shaken. He grabbed his coat and made for the door.

“Oh, hey, Doc,” Lucas said, just getting in for the morning. “Where are you going?”

“I need to talk to Detective Riley and Detective Fusco. If Jo comes looking for me, I’ll be at the 12th precinct.”

 

Henry still didn’t know why he trusted John Riley. Most people were unsettled the first time they saw his autopsy methods. Even Jo had been disgusted when she walked in on his opening up the dead subway driver that ignited their relationship. In fact, to say unsettled was an understatement.

But John Riley—he was calm. He didn’t relish the sight, but it failed to turn his stomach, which meant that the detective had seen a lot of gore in his life. And the man wouldn’t have seen enough working for the Narcotics division to have developed such a passé attitude around so much death.

Briefly, he entertained the idea that John Riley was another immortal like him. But it was unlikely that Adam, in all his years of searching had not found another immortal while Henry discovered two in his second century of eternal life.

And if the man was immortal, it was not Henry’s place to discover his secrets the way Adam had so forcefully uncovered his own.

The immortal got off the subway a few block away from the precinct and walked down the rest of the way.

One of the officers directed him to Detective Riley’s desk, which was in the back near the interrogation rooms. The building seemed a little older than one he and Detective Martinez worked in, but he could appreciate the intimidation of an older generation of police when the rules weren’t quite as strict. He had been on the receiving end of that intimidation more than he cared to remember.

“Dr. Morgan. Is something wrong?” Detective Riley was quite perceptive. Henry was sure that he showed no more outside signs of unsteadiness from the phone call, but the man had picked up on something right away. The immortal medical examiner heard Detective Fusco stand up and come closer so he could be involved as well.

“I received a phone call, I don’t know who it was, from someone who told me to drop Miss Harmon’s case.”

“Did they threaten you?” Of course that would be Detective Riley’s first question. But it looked the question was also on Fusco’s tongue.

“Not explicitly,” Henry confessed. “But between the voice changer and the tone of the words, it was heavily implied.”

It was almost as if something clicked in Riley’s head. He was suddenly standing straighter, poised to fight. It seemed that Fusco recognized this attitude in him as well. Henry could barely hear the shorter detective as he whispered, “Wonder boy, we’re in a police station. No one is going to try anything that stupid. And if they did. There are fifty cops between the door and us.”

Detective Riley relaxed, but not by much. “We can take you into protective custody.”

“Why would they be after me? I’m only the medical examiner,” Henry pointed out. “I simply told you because it means that we are asking the right questions.”

Suddenly Henry remembered what he had been saying right before the phone call. It had really just been thinking out loud, but for his thoughts to have been followed so closely by the phone call… It was possible that someone had planted listening devices in his office, possibly throughout his work space. He would need to talk to Detective Martinez and see if she could get her hands on any devices that would detect them faster than cleaning.

“I think that Christine Harmon discovered something, and if she had been given any more time to process it, she would have uncovered something damaging.” Henry needed to walk them both through the conversation he had with himself before he got the strange phone call. “As it was, I think she reported it before she really knew what it was she was reporting, and they killed her so she would never understand what she had found.”

“That makes sense,” Fusco said. “So we should probably start looking into her workplace then.”

John nodded. “I can take you back to your precinct, Dr. Morgan.” The way the man phrased it, Henry didn’t get the idea that he had an option in the matter.

 

Out in the car, Detective Riley offered him a cellphone. “It just a burner with my number programmed into it.”

“I believe I made my attitude toward those kind of phones clear,” Henry pointed out. “And I highly doubt that any of the materials in that are particularly combustible.”

John sighed. “It’s cheap and disposable. It’s called a burner phone because it’s hard to trace, and if it does get traced, then you aren’t throwing away something expensive or important when you get rid of it.”

“I really don’t see why I need one…”

“Look, just take it. If for no other reason but that I’ll feel better if I know that you can reach me if you need to while you’re not near a landline.”

Henry still refused. If he started carrying one now, Jo would expect him to have one at all times, and that was one piece of technology he could never get used to.

 

Back at the precinct, Henry went straight up to Jo rather than face whatever might be in his office alone.

“Lucas said that you’d gone to the 12th. Did Riley need something?” she asked as Henry stood over her desk.

“Actually, it’s quite the opposite. I needed to tell him that the investigation is headed in the right direction. Someone called me and told me to drop the case.”

“What?”

“It’s fine; there were no explicit threats and it would hardly be worth the effort to worry about it.”

“Still,” Jo protested. “We should tell the lieutenant.”

“But first, I wonder if you can help me procure an item that finds listening devices.”

Jo stared at Henry as if he had grown another head. “You think your office is bugged?”

“Yes, and as you know, such surveillance can only lead to more problems.”

“Jesus, Henry.” Jo ran her fingers through her hair, “You get into the most trouble when you’re supposed to be keeping a low profile. I think I can borrow something from Cyber-crimes that will help.”

 

She had told Henry that she would meet him in his office so Henry went back and waited for her, filling out paperwork in the interim so that if he spoke, the only thing his listeners would hear were the items on his request forms.

Detective Martinez appeared at his door with a finger on her lips. She set down a small grey box on his desk and flipped a switch on it. “Okay now we talk freely. That device jams any signals that are trying to get out. And this…” She held up another device, “This is for finding them.”

They worked their way methodically around the room and Jo handed the tiny bugs to Henry, who put them on the desk near the jammer.

“Uh, Henry?” She was poking at the pile they had gathered. “I think you may have a bit of a bigger problem.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you have two different styles of listening devices here, so either you have one person who got two different kinds, or you have two people listening in.”


	4. Speed Bumps

It was the first time that John was going to get a chance to put his surveillance equipment in the Henry’s home. Normally, this was one of the first things he did, along with pairing the number’s phone, but Henry wasn’t exactly typical as numbers went. He had no cellphone to pair, and he lived with a seventy year old man above an antique store they jointly owned. But it wasn’t like the numbers he usually got were all that normal.

Except Leon Tao. If Leon’s number came up, it was because he had done something stupid and ticked off the Irish mob…or the Russian mob…or the Cuban drug cartel. It was if his mantra every morning was “another day, another scam”. Hopefully he would learn one of these days and stop pissing off the wrong people before John wasn’t there to help him out of the mess he’d made.

It was actually a quaint antique shop as they went. There wasn’t a lot of selection, but most of it was genuinely antique. A lot of it seemed to be furniture. He had started upstairs so that he wouldn’t need to worry about getting trapped up there if Dr. Morgan or his roommate Abe Morgan came home.

“Is there any possibility that they’re related?” John asked.

“Not according to Dr. Morgan’s records,” Finch replied. “And stranger coincidences have happened. There’s quite a bit more documentation for Abraham Morgan though. Apparently his father’s name was also Dr. Henry Morgan.”

John noticed the door to the basement when he was coming down the stairs to the main floor.

“Hold on, Finch. I think I found something.”

He opened the door in the floor and descended into the dark space, feeling along the wall for the light switch.

“What it is, Mr. Reese?”

“I’m not sure yet. Other than the basement. Wait… Ah!”

The basement was bathed in light, but it didn’t look like many basements John had seen. Except for the ones that doubled as torture chambers.

“Finch, remember how I said that I hoped Dr. Morgan wasn’t the perpetrator?”

“Yes?”

John paused for a moment. “I really hope he has a good explanation for this.”

“Set up the cameras so I can see,” the older man insisted.

It was definitely something that needed to be seen to be believed. Especially when its owner was someone as unassuming as Dr. Morgan.

As soon as he set up the cameras and the feed got back to Finch, he could hear the surprise in his employer’s voice. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would have a secret lab like this.”

“But he does,” John pointed out. He started flipping through the journals on the shelf. “Hmm…”

“What have you found?”

“It’s a journal of some kind. It describes different kinds of injuries that result in death.”

“That’s hardly surprising since he is a medical examiner. And the fact that he has proven to be quite helpful in the rest of the investigation as well. He has a very good closure rate.” Reese could hear Finch pulling up various files on his computer. “He can apparently discern whether a death is accident, suicide or murder from a cursory examination of the body.”

“That doesn’t explain the random numbers attached to each of the deaths, all within a one to ten range." He flipped to a page with the outline of a body with an "x" at the center of it, and a six in the corner of the page. "It's almost like he's rating different kinds of deaths."

"Well, now that we have the cameras and microphones set up, we may find out what they are," Finch offered. "However, Mr. Morgan the elder seems to be on his way back."

"Understood."

John carefully replaced the journal, making sure that he had not disrupted something enough for the medical examiner to notice. Then he slipped out the door as if he had never been in the antique shop at all.

Reese was an expert at disappearing. No one knew where he went after Ordos, no one had ever been able to find him as the Man in the Suit, and no one had been able to figure out that John Riley was John Reese, the Man in the Suit.

 _A lot of the credit does need to go to Finch, and to the Machine_ , he thought as he slipped down an alleyway and entered the shadow map. _If it wasn't for the excellent identities they crafted, it wouldn't have worked this well._

There was a sound nearby and John’s head snapped up.

“Finch,” he activated his earpiece again. “I think someone might be following me. I’ll try to lose him before I come in.”

“Any idea who it is?”

“Not yet.” John left the unspoken assurance that he would find out exactly who was following him before he got back.

He continued down the street, following the pathways of the shadow map that everyone on the team had memorized. It took a couple of turnings to catch sight of the tail.

And John recognized him. He’d been at the crime scene. At the time, John had been too focused on Dr. Morgan. He’d done a cursory perimeter scan, and the man had looked normal enough.

But regular guys didn’t usually get their hands on military grade weaponry and know how to use it. And the way he was searching the alley with that assault rifle, it was obvious that he knew exactly how to handle it.

John activated his ear piece. “Finch, I’m pretty sure it’s Decima. He’s got an assault rifle.”

“How did he find you?”

“I saw him at the crime scene yesterday.”

“Did you do anything to blow your cover?” Finch asked. They needed to figure out what had tipped the agent off—and fast, before he found Root and Finch. Their team couldn’t lose anyone else.

“No. I was definitely playing be the rules yesterday and I have the paperwork to prove it. He was already there when I got to the scene.”

“Then there must be something about the woman…” John could hear the sound of Finch’s keyboard as he started to look into the woman’s background.

He’d lost sight of the agent, and when it was Decima, that could be fatal. John peeked out from his hiding place, trying to see where the agent might have gone.

He tried to duck the club that came swinging out of nowhere, but it still glanced his temple, disorienting him long enough for the Decima agent to use a Taser.

“I really expected more from you, Reese,” the man said as he filled a needle with an unknown liquid.

John struggled to move, but his muscles were still seized up from the Taser.

“With all the trouble we’ve gone through to find you and I find you working homicide for the NYPD. We should have murdered someone sooner.”

The agent leaned over and John felt the needle jab his neck. Then everything faded to black.


	5. Adventures in Hacking

As soon as the Decima agent started gloating, Harold Finch sent a signal to John’s phone that would wipe out all of its programming. Which cut off his connection to the ex-CIA operative. He could only hope that John would be okay, and he could always configure another phone for John. But Mr. Reese wouldn’t have wanted his capture to compromise Harold—that was something they had agreed upon a long time ago.

But now John was gone, and if his cover was blown, everything else could be too.

He hadn’t thought anything of it when the Machine had selected Christine Harmon’s case from the new homicides. If Decima had a connection, surely the Machine would have known. So why would it select that particular case as a cover to get close to the number? Was Henry Morgan just a ruse? That was most likely a question for Ms. Groves.

In the meantime, he could only look up the file, find out why Miss Harmon merited the attention of Decima.

She worked for a software company that refined developer’s apps. Not really that high on Decima’s list of threats, since that list consisted mainly of himself, John, and Root, now that Ms. Shaw was gone.

 _If Miss Harmon was the only one killed, she must have found something strange,_ Finch thought. _So I need to check her recent projects, possibly also the memos to her supervisor._

It was a lot of information to sift through, but he had nothing but time right now. Much as he would have wanted to rescue John, he couldn’t move ahead uninformed and he had no idea where the Decima agent would go first. And if he didn’t find the hole in their carefully crafted web of lies, then he would be in no position to help anyone anymore.

“Harold? Are you here?”

Ms. Groves’ voice had a tone of worry that was frankly surprising considering her penchant for causing the disasters that Finch had to deal with.

“In here, Ms. Groves,” he said without turning his chair around.

"Oh good. She was so insistent that I get over here now that I thought something bad had happened."

"Something bad has happened." He was still trying to break through the security on the dead woman's computer, but he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye as Root's hand moved closer to her gun.

"Where's John? Is he coming?"

"Well, that would be the problem." Finch finally turned around and watched her face darken as realization dawned.

"How?" she demanded. "We configured the servers so that Samaritan couldn't see us. How did they find him?"

“The same way they found Ms. Shaw. With people. I fact, I could use your insight. The agent who captured Mr. Reese implied that he was behind the murder that the Machine assigned in order to get close to our new number, the medical examiner.”

“Is this medical examiner involved with Decima?”

“It doesn’t appear so.” Finch turned back to his computer. “I’ve been looking into the victim’s records. She doesn’t appear to have an obvious connection to Decima, but she must have encountered something so big that they needed to kill her.”

“And you need my help getting into her computer? Aw, Harold, it’s so sweet of you to ask.” She reached for the keyboard, but he moved it out of her grasp.

“Actually,” he began. “Considering this was a murder orchestrated by Decima, I seriously doubt that the Machine didn’t know about it. I want to know why it would put John in danger of discovery while having us work on another number.”

Root cocked her head, listening to the instruction that the Machine was feeding her through her cochlear implant. A puzzling expression crossed her face—an expression that Finch didn’t often see on Root.

“She keeps saying something about Asset number three and anomaly. But there is no Asset number three. There’s John, who she identifies as Asset one, and Shaw is Asset two.”

“Could it be referring to Detective Fusco? Or Zoe Morgan?” _Yet another Morgan,_ Finch thought. _If she is the one that the Machine is referring to, this case will have an excess of Morgans._

Root winced. “Well, that’s a no. And I highly doubt she means the Decima agent.” Root sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Ugh. This is going nowhere fast. What do you know about the victim? Let start with whatever she found out.”

Finch finally got through the firewalls and started going through the contracts that Christine Harmon had been working on at the time of her death.

“This one,” Root pointed to the screen. “It’s one of the shell companies that Decima owns. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this is one of the ones that stores Samaritan’s servers.”

Finch opened the client file and discovered a memo to Miss Harmon’s supervisor. “‘While the main source code is operable without catastrophic failure, there is at least one deviation every few lines of code which would leave the program vulnerable to outside attack and exploitation. To know the full extent of the damage, I would need to see the original code, not a copy.'"

In that moment, Root and Finch realized why a dedicated worker at a small software company had been murdered—because she had been dedicated. Finch continued going through Miss Harmon’s employment records, which confirmed that she often went above and beyond what was asked of her, including working directly with the owners of the code to resolve any problems. This time, she had stumbled on an artificial intelligence who deemed her a threat to his continued existence.

Finch turned to Root and noticed that she was staring at the code intently. “Harold,” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the screen. “She was giving us a way to strike back.”


	6. Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Line of Fire

Henry had been on his way home, exhausted after a day of threats delivered over the phone, paperwork, and wasted lives spilling over onto his autopsy table. It was discouraging to see people who had so much potential left in them spread out before him because of suicide, murder, or some tragic accident. If only he could trade small pieces of his immortality to save their lives in exchange for their mortality—but he was Dr. Morgan, not Dr. Frankenstein. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he bumped into someone.

Well, actually they bumped into him.

“Excuse me,” Henry began automatically, decades of manners kicking in as he stepped to the side.

And the man who had collided with him closed the distance. “Into the alley, Doc,” he said, revealing his shoulder holster and the gun tucked innocently inside it. “And nobody has to get hurt.”

 _Not again_ , was all he could think. _I thought this sort of thing wouldn’t happen with Adam paralyzed and in the hospital._

It wasn’t as if he was actually afraid of a gun, but he acted like he was because it was safer that way. His secret remained safe and the people in the street weren’t put in any danger. Once they were beyond sight from the street, the man took his gun out and led the immortal down the alley to a van.

“Get in,” he demanded and Henry did, though only out of surprise at who he saw in the back of the van.

Detective Riley lay slumped against the inside of the utility vehicle. He was unkempt and unconscious, and still their captor had felt the need to use handcuffs on him. Actually, it was more like the irons that the men on the slave ship had been bound in—it was thick and heavy and would definitely restrict his movement were he awake to try moving.

The man pulled away and it was clear that this particular vehicle had been modified to keep Detective Riley and himself trapped.

Henry looked over the detective’s wounds, especially the raised contusion on the side of his head. He noticed the puncture wound from a needle on John’s neck. Lightly, the immortal shook the detective’s shoulder.

“Detective Riley? Can you open your eyes?”

The detective grunted, fighting off whatever was trying to keep him down. He still hadn’t opened his eyes, but Henry could tell that he was working his way toward wakefulness.

“Detective? Do you know what’s going on?” Henry really didn’t expect an answer; he was asking it more to identify his own unease and to try to take control of the situation.

But Detective Riley’s eyes opened and he managed to croak hoarsely, “Finch.” He tried to drag himself upward, but collapsed back against the side of the van. He was still trying to fight off the drugs, whatever they had been. Riley probably wasn’t even aware that he’s said anything.

Henry had to wonder at the constitution of the man that he was already fighting off the foreign substance in his system. What kind of a life had he had that his body could process through the toxins so quickly?

Detective Riley opened his eyes again, a kind of weary awareness in them as he took in the chains, the vehicle, and finally Henry himself.

“What are you doing here, Dr. Morgan?”

“The same as you, I suppose. I was shanghaied,” Henry replied, leaning back to give John some space. “Though I didn’t put up nearly the fight you apparently did.”

“Wait—agh.” Detective Riley touched the lump on his head gingerly. “You were there?” He swayed and Henry reached out to steady him.

“No, he got to me while I was walking home. I checked you and nothing seems to be life threatening. Other than that bump and whatever he injected you with, you’re perfectly fine.” A thought made Henry smile slightly. “If we had been together, I’m sure you could have fought him off and I could have retrieved help quickly enough that neither of us would end up here.”

The van lurched to a stop and Henry was thrown off balance. Detective Riley, because he was propped up against the side merely slid. He was still too out of sorts because of the drugs in his system, so when the back of the van opened, John moved to put himself between Henry and their captor, and he fell heavily on his shoulder.

“Huh,” the man muttered. “I thought you’d be out for at least another hour. Help him.”

Henry was already moving to help John, though the detective was doing his best not to shift his weight onto the medical examiner. They climbed out of the back of the van and Detective Riley swayed, but he managed to keep his feet under him.

Their captor waved his gun in the direction of a nearby warehouse. The air smelled faintly of fish and salt water.

 _So we’re near the docks,_ Henry though. He looked around to see if he could recognize anything nearby but the man with the gun shoved them along before he could see much.

He directed them to a small room with a low ceiling. He shoved John in first, who barely caught himself before he hit the floor, then he pushed Henry in after him.

“Looks like you’ll get a little company for a while, Reese. Enjoy it while he’s still alive. You’ll be going to meet Greer eventually.”

The door closed and the lock clicked into place.

John was standing on his own now, more alert and in control of his body. But the look on his face was dangerous. Henry had only seen it on desperate men, men on the brink of committing murder.

“What did he mean by calling you Reese?” Henry asked, trying to diffuse John’s anger, even though he knew it was not directed at him.

“That was the name I used while I was undercover in Narcotics.”

“And this Greer person was one of the drug lords?”

This time, Riley hesitated for a fraction of a second—and anyone else would have missed it, but Henry had lived long enough to tell when someone was lying to him. “Yes.”

Henry watched as John felt around the collar of his shirt and he was about to ask why he was doing that when the detective pulled out a wire like a straightened paperclip. In moments, it was bent into a strange shape and he inserted it into the cuff that were still hindering his movement. The medical examiner watched as each restraint fell away in seconds and John kicked them into the corner.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Henry asked. Houdini-esque skill were not something he had expected from a regular detective.

“The internet.” Neither of them believed that.

Then something crossed Detective Riley’s face. “Did he check your pockets?”

“What? No, he didn’t.”

“Good. There should be a phone in your left coat pocket.”

Henry reached into his pocket and sure enough, there was a cell phone in there. “What is this doing in there? I thought I made it quite clear that I don’t like these.”

“Does that really matter right this second? Just, call someone you trust.”

Henry turned away. Just as John had said, his number was the only one programmed into the phone. It hardly mattered; Henry knew Jo’s number by heart. His fingers tapped it out and he pressed the button that initiated the connection, then held the small phone up to his ear.

“Hello? This is Jo Martinez.”

“Jo, it’s Henry.”

“Henry? That wasn’t your home phone number, was it? I thought I was getting better at recognizing it.”

“It wasn’t my number. Detective Riley and I have found ourselves in a bit of a situation.”

“What kind of situation?”

“Remember the first case that had Miss Iona Payne?”

“What? Henry, where are you?”

“It’s a warehouse near the docks. I think one of the signs said West 47th street, but I didn’t catch any of the cross streets.”

“That’s fine. I can figure it out from there. Should I bring Hanson or Riley’s partner?”

Henry thought for a moment, then continued in a low voice. “Actually, the man who grabbed us has implied that he is going to kill me. If that does happen, I think I would prefer fewer witnesses.”

“Got it. I’ll be there soon.”

The line disconnected and Henry handed the phone back to John. “Do you need to call anyone? Your partner perhaps?”

“He has a kid,” John explained. “I can’t bring him into this. The only one I would call in this case is out of range.”

While Henry was glad that no one else would show up, he was intrigued by the answer. Who would Detective Riley call if not his partner? Neither of them would have wanted to call loved ones for fear of putting them in danger if they didn’t have the skills to handle themselves as Detective Martinez did. So who did Detective Riley know with those skills?

The medical examiner was distracted from his thought as the door rattled and swung open. However, upon seeing John without the cuffs, their captor promptly shut the door again and locked it.

“Well. Apparently he doesn’t want to fight me when I can see him coming,” John muttered. “Which means I can probably beat him in a fight. Who did you call?”

“Detective Martinez.”

Detective Riley went quiet for a bit, then said, “I saw this guy at the scene. He might have been the one that was threatening you.”

“To be quite honest, I thought that might have been the case. Nothing else really made sense. I don’t receive many threats. Until quite recently, I wasn’t this involved in the investigation.”

John opened his mouth, then closed it again, turning back toward the door. It opened again and the detective stepped in front of Henry as the barbs of a Taser snaked into the small space. They caught Detective Riley full in the chest and his legs buckled under him as the current paralyzed his muscles.

Henry moved to help him, only to be stopped by their captor, who now held a gun. “You don’t want to do that, Doc. You should have dropped the case. Then I wouldn’t have to kill you. And don’t worry about Reese. If he tells us where to find his boss, we might let him live.”

John was stirring between them and Henry allowed his gaze to fall on the detective. The sound of the gunshot echoed in the small room so it sounded like two shots.

 _Or it was two shots_ , he thought as he looked up to see the man crumple to the ground in a pool of his own blood, and Detective Martinez running towards him as gravity decided he shouldn’t be standing anymore.

Riley was back on his feet again, alert and ready for another threat. Then he looked down at Henry and an expression of guilt, fear, and anger crossed his normally stoic face.

 _No,_ Henry thought. _Not while he’s watching._

But though the medical examiner could escape a permanent death, he had no power to will his body to retain the life in it when it sustained such an injury. His very, very long life began flashing across his vision.


	7. Secrets, Spies, Immortals and Lies

John didn’t think he was going crazy. But he didn’t know what all was in that needle.

Henry Morgan had been in that room—the presence of Detective Martinez proved that. He had been shot; he had died. And then he had vanished.

 _It came out the same way. There’s no other way to explain it,_ John thought ruefully. _All the people trying to kill me for the past four years have finally succeeded in driving me insane._

“Where did he go?” John asked, feeling as slow as Root often accused him of being. “Even his blood is gone.”

Detective Martinez turned on him, her gun still in her hand. “Just who the hell are you, Riley? Who is Reese? And what boss? I heard what he was saying. Are you part of that corrupt cop organization, HR?”

“No.” John held his hands up. “I don’t know what he was talking about.”

“Bullshit. Reese? Is that your name? I am going to get my friend and if you want see dawn tomorrow morning, you aren’t going to say a word to anyone until I do.” Without taking her eyes off of John, she grabbed her handcuffs. “Now you’re going to get in the car and go with me so I can keep an eye on you. Hands on your head.”

 _Well, it’s been a while since this happened_ , he thought as he submitted to her demands. Perhaps he would get some answers this way.

She put him in the back of her car and John had to admit the odd kind of nostalgia he was feeling. This was how Fusco had ended up a part of the team. However, he doubted very much that Detective Martinez was going to kill him and bury him out in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully.

Through the window, John could hear her on the phone.

“Hey, Abe…Yes, I know it’s late. I’m sorry…You guessed it.” She sighed heavily, as if she had just finished one stack of tedious paperwork just to pick up another one. “I’m going to have to meet you there; we have a bit of an issue…Not quite. You’ll see when I get there.”

Assuming that it was Abe Morgan she had called, John considered asking why she hadn’t told Henry’s roommate that Henry had been shot. Perhaps it had something to do with “you guessed it”. But the ex-CIA operative decided not to test how trigger-happy she might be by asking about it.  Instead, he drew another wire from the lining of his jacket to unlock the handcuffs. She apparently hadn’t noticed the pile of chains in the corner that John had escaped from earlier. But people underestimating him was how had managed to survive as long as he had.

The drive proceeded in silence, but John was surprised by their destination.

“You brought me to a park on the riverbank? Are you going to kill me and sink my body in the river? Because that would be surprisingly refreshing considering how most people just try to shoot me.”

“Shut up. I’ll be back when we’ve figured out what to do about you.”

Detective Martinez got out of the vehicle and started walking in the direction of the river. After a moment, John followed her.

He was still out of sight when he heard people talking—especially one with a quite distinct British accent.

“Jo, this could just mean that I need to leave town. I’ve told that’s what I usually do. However Adam was a special case. And Abraham…”

“Dad, if you’re in danger of being discovered, I don’t want to think that I’m the reason you stayed and got caught.”

John peeked around and the corner and saw Dr. Morgan standing alive and well—if a bit damp. He had a towel around his shoulders and hadn’t yet got to putting on his shoes, which he held in his left hand.

“I could have him arrested,” Detective Martinez offered. “He’s got some kind of connection to the guy I shot, and I’m sure that if we investigated further, we would find out something about the things that guy was saying. Besides, I’ve already got him in cuffs in the car.”

“Jo, I don’t wish to alarm you, but Detective Riley proved to be quite the escape artist when that man put him in manacles.”

John stepped out into their little circle. “Dr. Morgan, you’ve ruined my entrance.” He saw Martinez reach for her gun and put his hands up to show that he was not reaching for any weapons. “I would rather you didn’t shoot me; I can’t accomplish Dr. Morgan’s feat of dying and coming back to life.”

“Jo.” Henry’s voice was firm and John was certain that this man would not let him die to keep his secrets.

 _He’s already better than the CIA and Decima,_ John thought. _And perhaps he does deserve some answers on my part._

“Who are you really, Riley?” Jo asked. There was still a bit of hostility in her voice, but no more than John would have if someone threatened to expose Finch.

“If you want me to answer that, we’re going to have to move somewhere safer.”

John led them onto the shadow map, where they could not be overheard by Samaritan because he had made them leave their cellphones in the cars. _Samaritan is going to be a fun one to explain._

“Alright, talk.” Jo demanded. “Reese or Riley or whatever the hell your name is?”

“You’re in law enforcement, so I’ll start with this. Do you remember the day that there was no crime in the city? And then it was followed by the day the witness protection list was circulated on the internet?”

“Yes.” Both Jo and Henry looked upset by what had happened that day. John had to admit that he was upset that day too.

“That was an artificial intelligence testing the waters.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Jo asked incredulously.

“Immortality is supposed to be unachievable, but you are standing beside someone who just came back to life. The only thing hindering the development of artificial intelligence is technology, and I know a couple of people who have succeeded on that front. One in a good way and one in a very bad way.”

“Now there are two AI’s?” Abe asked. “Which one cause all that havoc?”

“The second one. It’s called Samaritan. They were both built and used for the same purpose, to track terrorist before they strike, so they both have access to all the NSA feeds. The first AI was a black box—there was no manipulating any of the information or using it to track down specific people.” John took a deep breath. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was telling them all of this and he desperately wanted to call Finch, who must think the worst by now. “Samaritan, besides being the complete opposite, is also privately owned. And Greer, who controls Samaritan, wants to kill me and the people I work with.”

“Why? If this Greer has an AI that can find anyone, why is he so concerned about an NYPD detective?”

“I think I understand,” Henry said quietly. “You work with the other artificial intelligence.”

John nodded. The medical examiner was always extremely perceptive. “The Machine has care for human life written into its code; Samaritan does not, hence the witness protection program disaster. It did that because what we do is track down someone who is going to kill or be killed. We save the victims and send the perpetrators to jail.”

“So,” Henry asked slowly. “Who or what is Finch?”

John had to fight to keep from showing the surprise he felt. “Finch is one of the people I work with. Kind of the moral compass of the group. None of us would be together without Finch.”

“How many of you are there?” Jo asked.

“Fewer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Fewer…since Samaritan went online.”

The number didn’t matter anymore. The fact that Samaritan had caused that absence in their team was enough.

“In fact, I think you need to meet the team. Or what’s left of it.”


	8. The Meeting of Minds

Finch jumped when his phone rang. Since Root was just across the room, there were only two people who had his number. And he didn’t think the Machine would be calling him with Root in the room. Fusco didn’t have that number.

“Hello?” Harold said, not daring to hope until he heard the voice on the other end of the line.

“Harold, it’s me.”

“John. Oh, thank god!” The relief that broke through him made him realize how tense he had been since he had lost contact with John.

“I need you to meet me at the safe house. Is Root there with you? Bring her too.” Harold didn’t like it when John was being cryptic; it usually meant that something unusual would be brought up. “There’s something about this number that we all need to discuss.”

“John, is something wrong?”

“You’ll see when you get there. It’s nothing dangerous.”

The line disconnected and Finch was left with the distinct impression that John was avoiding some issue. Though what that was, he would have to wait to find out.

“Ms. Groves, we need to go to the safe house.”

“You’ve heard from John?”

“Yes and he wants us to meet him at the safe house to meet the number.”

Root grabbed her gun. “Okay. I’ll drive, Harry.”

Finch didn’t particularly like being chauffeured around by Root. It brought back bad memories about being her captive shortly after he started working with John. Now that the Machine was under attack from Samaritan though, they were all working together to stay alive.

The safe house didn’t look any different, but there was a strange car sitting out front. But Finch didn’t think that Decima would drive around in an older style of car.

There were twice as many people at the safe house than Finch was expecting, and one of them was another detective who wasn’t Fusco.

“John?”

“Here.” John stepped out into the entry hall. “I had to tell them about Samaritan and the Machine.”

“You did what? John, tell me you didn’t.”

“Think of it as an exchange of secrets.”

“What secrets? John, you’ve put them in danger by telling them about the Machine and Samaritan. Why would you do that?”

Dr. Henry Morgan stepped toward them. “Are you Finch?” he asked. “Please don’t get upset with Mr. Reese. He had to explain a few things about what was going on. Detective Martinez forced him.”

“Be that as it may,” Finch said, his tone rising in pitch. “John still should not have told you anything about them.”

Root drew closer to the rapidly growing circle. “Is this Asset number three?”

A look of confusion crossed Dr. Morgan’s face, but Finch could tell that Root was talking more to the Machine than to anyone else in the room. She suddenly had the look of the cat that ate the canary.

“And the anomaly?”

Dr. Morgan looked away to John. “I probably need to start back at the beginning. I was born September 19th, 1779 and I died in 1815. The first time.”

“The first time?” This conversation was starting to stretch credulity to the breaking point.

“For some reason, I always come back to life after I die. I don’t know why, but I do. And I always return in water.”

John re-entered the conversation. “The anomaly might refer to the fact that he disappears when he dies and reappears elsewhere.”

“And you’ve seen this happen?” Finch asked. Reese was the only one he could trust in this situation, which was starting to sound more and more like a fairy tale.

“Yes.”

Finch sighed. “Why did you tell them about me?”

Henry jumped in. “He didn’t. Not consciously anyway. He was slightly delirious from the drugs in his system and mentioned your name. I was the one pressed. If it makes you feel better, he didn’t say much.”

“I’d rather he hadn’t said anything at all. But it’s too late now.” Finch turned his attention back to John. “You were right. There was a connection to Decima. She was working with a copy of Samaritan’s source code, which showed some significant flaws. Ones that we now have the opportunity to exploit.”

Root clapped her hands in a demented kind of glee. “We could fry his circuits with what we’ve got.”

“You’re going after that scary AI?” Abe asked, drawing the conversation into the sitting room.

“I think we have to now,” Finch said, drawing all eyes in the room. “We’re protected from the eyes of Samaritan, but you, unfortunately, are not. And if Samaritan or Greer ever get wind of the fact that we talked or that you have knowledge of the Machine, it’s quite possible that you will disappear into their custody, never to show up again. Greer has a track record for using people until they cease to be useful. If nothing else, we need to upload a virus that will give the same kind of protection that we have.”


	9. The Best Laid Plans

It was supposed to be a simple operation. Though, granted, they were storming a Decima facility, which hadn’t gone that well the last time they tried something like that. They hadn’t dared bring Henry or Detective Martinez with them because that would further damage the protection that their previous ignorance granted them.

But John didn’t like having Finch in the building either. It was a major security risk, even though they needed him to get the virus on the computer. He was the only one who understood the code of an artificial intelligence enough to slip the virus past the AI’s immune system. He had modified the virus that was going to infect the Machine, after all. But John still felt an undue amount of stress having Finch wandering around through part of Samaritan’s brain.

They had gotten through the first few tiers of security easier enough, thanks to Root. Although it was less hacking, and more seducing. John hid his amusement behind his hands every time she started flirting with one of the guards. And it worked. They thought she was an analyst coming in to work on one of the servers. Not quite false.

It was even pretty easy to get into the actual server room and get access to the computer in there.

“This may take a while,” Finch warned.

And that’s where things started going wrong. Because time was one of the things they didn’t have. As soon as they walked in the building, they were working on borrowed time. Every person they had passed would report to someone in the chain of command that led to Greer.

“Harold,” Root said after listening to the Machine, “she said they’ve started moving now. We’ve got twenty minutes, tops.”

“I won’t have time to do everything we wanted to.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” John pointed out. “We need the time to make our escape. We have to be clear before they get within a mile of this building.”

“I just need to finish the patch with Dr. Morgan’s record.”

John was beginning to feel the panic set in as the seconds ticked away. He could almost feel the breath of Samaritan’s agents on the back of his neck. He could see that Root was also starting to feel frantic. She always got a crazed kind of look in her eye. Paired with her usual smirk, anyone who saw her would believe that she was capable of murder.

“Harold?” There was a quaver in her voice that John had never heard before. He hadn’t believed that she could be scared until that moment.

“I’m almost finished, Ms. Groves. Just two more minutes.”

“I don’t know if we have that long.”

As if on cue, a klaxon went off, putting the whole building on alert.

“Done,” Finch called to them.

“Root, I need you to take point on this.” John held out one of his guns. “You and I both know that Harold won’t make it out if I don’t carry him.”

“John!”

“I can move faster carrying you than you can move on your own. And we’re wasting time sitting here talking about it.”

Up ahead, they heard the sound of gunfire.

“And that would be Root trying to clear the way.”

“Fine, just go!”

They followed the sound of carnage down the corridors, walking past people passed out from their injuries or worse, considering it was Root. They caught up at a blind corner.

“I know that there are people around this corner,” Root said, “but I don’t know where exactly they are. And Samaritan has cut the cameras, so she can’t tell me anything.”

All of the sudden, there were sirens outside, and the door at the end of the corridor slammed open.

“This is the police! Come out with your hands up.”

John peeked around the corner and saw the Decima agents scramble to hide their military grade weapons as the officers charged through the door in their Kevlar vests wearing blast shield visors.

“Where are they?” one officer asked the security officers.

“End of the hall.”

“Hey,” the other officer called. “I see you down there. Put your weapons on the ground!”

Slowly, they edged down the hall, leaving their weapons where they were standing when the police came in. The female officer kept her weapon raised as the male put cuffs first on Root, then Finch, and finally John. John grunted as the officer tightened the cuffs as far as they would ratchet on his wrist.

“What? You got a problem with that, buddy?” The officer taunted. “Deal with it.”

Outside, they were put in the backs of the two vehicles that had arrived on the scene. Then the officers got in and drove off.

“That,” Fusco finally said, taking off the blast visor, “was way too close for comfort. Next time you guys decide to commit suicide, warn me so I can leave town.”


	10. And Here We Part

Considering the chaos of the night before, Henry was surprised that any of them were still standing. The rush of panic and adrenaline when they thought that the team might not make it out alive was more than Henry thought he could stand. But he had never died of fear himself. Jo called him when they were safely away. It was fortunate that they had planned for this eventuality before Team Machine went in. He could still hardly believe that there was some artificial intelligence that tracked everyone wherever they went and saw whatever they did.

“I suppose this would be goodbye then,” he said to Finch, who had sat down in the corner after they returned to try and cool down after their daring and dangerous escape.

“Most likely,” he replied, his breathing finally back to normal. “I don’t know if this is a sustainable relationship. We’re already a candle burning at both end; this would be like adding a blowtorch to the middle. And we need to disappear for a few days until they stop searching as hard for us. It won’t take them very long to realize that we never made it as far as the precinct.”

“I see.” _And I just got Adam to the fringe of my life; I don’t need some morally corrupt company chasing after me._

“However…” Finch trailed off.

“Yes?”

“We recently lost the person who patched us up if we got caught in a fight. Well, she was more than that, but she was our doctor, too. And we don’t know if we’re ever going to find her again.” Finch paused, but only for a moment. “We need a doctor, someone we can trust.”

 _Perhaps that was the person John would have called_. “I would be quite willing to help you in any of your medical needs. Speaking of which, I have been wondering about your limp.”

“It’s an old wound. And it’s never going to heal properly.”

Henry stepped closer. “Are you in pain?”

“Every single day. But I can deal with the pain. It’s a constant reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of why I started helping people in the first place.” Henry wished that Finch would go on, but he left it there.

It didn’t seem quite right to Henry, to have that knowledge and to do nothing with it. While he could risk his own life, he couldn’t risk the lives of the people around him, like Abe and Jo.

"What are you going to do about all this?" Henry asked. "How are you supposed to combat all of that?”

“The only way we know how: we save people. That’s all that we have done. That’s all we can do. Every single one of us has accepted the fact that one way or another, we will die at the end of this story.”

“Perhaps that was why your Machine gave you my number. I cannot stay dead.”

“But you’re not a fighter,” Finch pointed out. “You’re a doctor, and that is a far better thing than what we do.”

“We’ve got to go, Henry,” Jo called, cutting off anything he might have said. “If I hear anymore from Root, I won’t have plausible deniability with Cybercrimes. And Abe, I’m going to drive, if that’s okay with you.”

“Wait, now?” Abe asked. “I was swapping war stories with John.”

“Yes, now. It’s already pretty late and I have work in the morning,” she said. “I don’t know about either of you, but I actually plan to get some sleep tonight.”

“I don’t know how you expect to do that,” Abe said. “I haven’t had this much excitement since—I’m not entirely sure. It’s a toss-up between a few things.”

“Was that before or after the Renaissance?” Root asked.

“Ms. Groves!”

“I’m not that old,” Henry pointed out, “So my son couldn’t possibly be.”

“You never know,” she smiled.

“No, actually I do. I know quite well. I raised him.”

“If you’re going to keep antagonizing them, Root,” John said, “we could always find another mental hospital for you.”

“Wait, another one?” Abe asked.

“I believe we need to go now, Abe.” Henry ushered them towards the door. Then he looked back at Team Machine. “I hope that you all stay safe for the time being. I suppose I shall see you or your work a little more in the future.”

“Possibly,” Finch agreed, “now that you know what it is. Until then, stay small and safe, and hopefully you can avoid the worst of this war.”

Henry nodded and left the safe house, unsure if he would see any of them alive again.


End file.
